For lack of sleep and better things to do, Kendath found himself restlessly pacing about the shadows outside the inn. He circled the inn a full three times before realizing what he was doing. The fourth time a gust of blithe laughter interrupted his meandering thoughts, he decided he needed time to think and so began heading out of the village.

It was during this very venture that he first spotted the figures silhouetted against the starlight. Curiousity piqued despite the alarms going off in his head, he crept towards them to investigate.

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Merrin must have glared rather hard, for this new acquaintance raised his eyebrows at her vehement denial. "Don't impale me on your gaze, lass. 'Twas a question. Your companion is not an overly talkative one, I see."

The thought of describing Kendath as overly talkative was instantly ludicrous to Merrin. "Eh...no," she ventured cautiously. "Not entirely."

He seemed curious still, and watched Merrin halfheartedly pick at the remnants of the stew.

Am I so obvious? She wondered.

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Gah. Due to previously unforeseen circumstances, I will have only around an hour online every day this week until Friday, including researching for schoolwork. Sorry, but it might be better if you just move on for now instead of waiting for me. Of course, if you can manage to avoid returning to the present until Saturday or something, I'll still be able to go with the idea that Meldawen had (thanks, Melda!!!).

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((No problem We'll carry on and be waiting for you this weekend EDIT: Oh yeah, and you're welcome ))

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Perhaps it was their rune-etched black and crimson robes or even the pentagram they stood around, but for all in the world, Kendath had the feeling he'd just stumbled upon some occult summit. And he had an even bigger feeling that should he be discovered, matters would not proceed well for him. He ducked behind a boulder lest he be seen.

The pentagram glowed with hellish fire in the darkness, the flames licking its five points and reaching a cynosure in the center, where they columned up to form an infernal altar. Upon the altar lay a young maiden - an elf - whose helplessness only enhanced her breathtaking beauty. The lead figure, his face shadowed by a cowl, raised a glittering dagger.

In his life Kendath had witnessed countless blood rites, had both watched and been subject to cruel Meiltha torture sessions. But somehow the unalloyed evil of this ritual, the sight of that tainted blade inexorably poised over the elfmaid's heart, made his breath catch in his throat.

He looked away.

One scream, spinechilling and utterly horrifying, split the night air. When he looked once more, the elfmaid's blood was pouring in great cataracts down the sides of the altar, depraving the vermilion flames with crimson. The robed figures raised their arms in a mantra of exultation. The harsh syllables tore from their throats, sending great waves of power that coalesced above the altar.

And the dead were wakened.

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The aura of evil that suddenly emanated like a shock wave through the surrounding country was hardly something to be dismissed as insignificant. The whole of the tiny village was suddenly silent as the dead that now walked, and those not yet gone to their beds sat frozen, Merrin included. Faint sounds reached them to indicate that the dead were not silent, myriad bloodchilling cries preceded by a single scream of utter hopelessness.

The slight little dragonrider was first to break the shocked stupor by rising and dashing to the door, paling on catching sight of the rising red flames. The night sky seemed blacker than ever in contrast with those red fingers licking up at the stars.

Merrin's actions roused the inn's other inmates and complete mayhem ensued. Farmers, mugs of ale forgotten, dashed to their homes to rouse their wives and children. Other merely stared in horror like Merrin before being overcome by terror.

Wyvern! she cried out mentally. It struck her that Kendath had not been one of those who fled from the inn's common room, and panic rose in her throat.

Half-tripping in her haste Merrin stumbled down the steps, searching the sky for Wyvern's silver silhouette. "Kendath!" she shrieked over the din, hoping desperately he was somewhere near.

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"Find them!" the lead necromancer shrieked, his rasping voice carrying uncannily on the chill wind. "Find them!"

Kendath was already moving, breaking into a desperate dash back towards the village. The subconsciousness usually reacts faster than the mind, and he had the vaguest notion that he knew exactly who the necromancer had been speaking of. But, as he glanced back at the skeletal figures in the lambent firelight, with their swords of oblivion and keening laments, the thought was too terrible to comprehend.

Kendath! Ken... A plaintive wail sounded from the heavens, causing him to slow his steps and glance upwards. His blood congealed. The dead not only walked - the flew. Hordes of barely substantial dragons - winged wraiths of icy cold - funneled through the inky darkness. He frantically scanned the skies, but Gyre's jade frame was nowhere in sight. He was alone.

What living beings were capable of harnessing such fell power?

The village was in mayhem when he arrived. Terrified screams and undead shrieks pierced the din. The wraith wyrms swooped in, scalding the villagers with their sepulchral breaths. And then he saw her, a slight figure in the pressing chaos, stumbling down the steps of the inn.

Racing to her, he seized her arm and pulled her along. "They're after us!" he shouted. "We're on our own!"

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"Who? Who's after us?" Merrin shrieked at him, the only way to be heard over the roar of flames and the screams of undead and villagers alike. She twisted to scan the skies and initially thought a whole horde of silver ghostlike Wyverns swooped over them - but these were not her smaller silver dragon, these were crimson-eyed, fanged monsters.

A thought struck her and she pulled away, halting in the midst of the scrambling, terrified mobs. "Kendath, we can't let them raze this village to the ground if they're only after us!" She had no idea who they were, but it took very little to see that they meant everyone in reach harm.

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Her shriek didn't register at first, and Kendath only halted to glare back at her impatiently. When it did click, his first sentiment was utter bemusement - what in the abyss was she talking about? An instant later he comprehended, to which incredulity twisted his features. "What are you suggesting?" he demanded, his voice a double-edged knife.

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*shifty eyes* I'm gonna make my bio right now, anyways.

Name: Adanil
Age: 22
Race: Human
Appearance: Short brown hair, grey eyes (.....you didn't really think I would make a character without grey eyes, did you?), and tanned skin. He's about 6'1, and somewhat muscled, since he's been a farmer most of his life.
Weapon(s): A dagger and a scimitar
Background: Adanil has lived in whatever-area-Merrin-and-Kendath-are-in-right-now for his entire life, tending his father's fields, yet always aspiring to be a Dragonrider, or at least a soldier. To that end, he has taken swordsmanship lessons from a local guard, and after acquiring his sword, he prepared to leave, which is about what he's doing now.

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Something wasn't right. Maybe it was the sudden silence that had fallen on the area, coupled with the fact that the night sky seemed to be viewed through a slight mist or veil, but the shadows suddenly seemed threatening and ominous--even his own--and a sense of foreboding fell on Adanil. Nothing like this had ever happened in all twenty-two years of his simple existence, and he had never heard of it either, not even from Old Kaldor, or any of the travellers whose stories he loved to hear at the Inn. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to be an encouraging start to his planned adventure.

Then he heard the scream. The shadows suddenly seemed hostile, and he stayed away from them, drawing his scimitar. He had convinced Banden the Smith to make it for him, using metals and jewels he had found in the forest. Its Reddish-gold hilt was in the shape of a swan with wings spread, and on the pommel a large ruby was set. The blade was beautifully curved, with a slight barb on the inside, though that had been an addition of the smith--Adanil had no idea of what it was supposed to do.

As he neared the Inn, he saw people fleeing from it, and dark shapes coming from the shadows around. People he had known--people who were dead. Through the sky flew great dragons, seeming insubstantial, yet their horrible breath was real enough. This was a night of horrors.

In the midst of the fleeing people there were two who were reacting differently than the others. While everyone else screamed and ran, they ran, and talked. About themselves. Then the girl halted, and Adanil's course took him a little closer.

"...can't let them raze this village to the ground if they're only after us!" he heard girl say. What was that supposed to mean? He stopped in his tracks.

"What are you suggesting?" the man asked in reply, a slight edge in his tone.

"What are you suggesting?" Adanil shouted, remembering to move his feet. "Are you saying this is all because of you?" if it was, he didn't care about their lives--they were going to find some way to undo all of this. He made that clear to them, or tried to. They weren't going to cause more harm in his village, though he wasn't sure how they could stop this attack in time.

"Find some way to stop this NOW!" he said, anger tinging his voice. If they had started this, they could stop this. If the dead were after them, then they could sacrifice themselves or run away--he didn't care, so long as they stopped this attack.

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"I don't know!" Merrin clenched her fists, glaring at both Kendath and this new arrival. "We need the dragons! Now! To draw them away, or something - Kendath, I don't care, I'm not letting all these people die!"

This seemed the first time in quite a while she'd refused to go along meekly with one of his plans. Merrin couldn't say truthfully that she wanted anything more than to run away, but the right thing to do was right in front of her and she was not blessed by the gods for nothing.

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Kendath flicked an irritable glance at the new arrival - a farmer by his tanned skin, though his scimitar hinted that he was more than he appeared. His gaze shifted over to the desperate Merrin. "Then we run," he stated simply. "And they follow. Which is more important - the survival of dragonkind or this insignificant village?"

It was a lie, he knew. He'd lived through such events before, and he knew the undead harbored neither mercy nor rationality. One objective drove them on - they would slaughter any who happened to get in their way. But he was a survivor, and his mind knew it to be right - in this contention for existence, dragonkind prevailed.

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A split second of staring at Kendath and Merrin cried out mentally again - Wyvern! We need to get out of here - or this whole village will die because of us!

This time he replied. Trying...too many dragons...can't land inside the village...

Merrin only caught fragments of his thoughts, indication that he was otherwise occupied in a very big way. "No good," she gasped, "Wyvern's fighting off - whatever it is - where's Gyre?"

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Suddenly something red flashed trough the village, just right past Kendath and exploded a house into bits, setting flames to surrounding buildings around the explosion. A white robed figure apptoached from the direction of the red flash and stopped to stare at the renegades from a distance. The crystal in Garthag`s grasp flashed a bright, beating light as Garthag simply stared at them quietly.

"What do you think you can accomplish here? Apparently very little at the moment for your death seems to be a very possible solution to this conflict and I will gladly do so in order tp stop you meddling the past that you should not have taken part in...."

He inquired for it was their fault that this time was being disturbed and the reason why Garthag was there in the first place.

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

This struck Merrin as nonsensical, what little of it she heard. The roar of dragonfire, the keening of the undead and the screams of the villagers made most of his words inaudible. However, the suddenly atomized house provided more than another reason for Merrin to feel guilty.

A silver shape thudded earthwards in the cleared patch of scroched ground, this one comfortingly solid and emerald-eyed. Normally his appearance alone would have caused panic among the villagers, but the ghostly shapes in the sky overhead and on the ground were currently giving them much more to worry about.

Merrin fumbled to climb aboard, glancing about for Gyre to see if she need offer Kendath a hand up as well.

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"How rude"

Garthag said and sighed before he raised his hand, with few mumbles of magic words he sent a lightning bolt towards the dragon and the escaping fools that were doing something beyond their limits.

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!